Sunday, January 29, 2012

[SWTOR] Imperial Agent Done!

I got my Imperial Agent up to level 50 and finished the class storyline and also the main quest storyline. The Imperial Agent storyline (especially Light-side Imp Agent, in my opinion) was very, very good. Very spy-like, lots of twists and turns, betrayal, double/triple agents, etc. The main theme of the storyline, of how the non-Sith exist in an Empire ruled by the Sith, was really interesting.

I was expecting a lot of the traditional spy stuff, and that was there in spades. At one point, I was pretty sure I was a quintuple agent, which in retrospect makes no sense, but indicates the level of paranoia that was going on. But I was not expecting story elements to be based on Isaac Asimov's work. It was brilliant, and well thought out.

For tactics, I played Marksman Sniper. It worked fine for the most part, though it is rather weak until you get to about level 30 or so. At that point you get two abilities (one from talents, one trained) which are a core part of the rotation, and damage starts flowing.

The difficulty level is interesting too. In general, class quests were slightly easier than regular story quests, which does make class balance seem slightly questionable. Overall though, most fights were roughly the same difficulty, save two.

These two fights are significantly harder than all other fights, and it does seem rather odd. The first fight is the class fight at the end of Chapter 1. It doesn't help that it's pretty buggy. But the entire fight is based around interrupting, using any ability that can interrupt, including knockbacks.

The second hard fight is main quest boss at the end of Voss. When did pillar-humping become an acceptable PvE tactic? This fight is literally pillar-humping as you use two pillars to break line-of-sight while keeping dots up and the occasional instant.

Oh well, those two fights do seem a little out of character.

But now the question becomes what should I do? Should I start a new character and check out a new story? Should I try and do instances? Lots of choices here.

I just finished my IA's chapter one last night, and you are so right about that last boss. Took me a lot of tries to beat him, and I felt like a fool afterwards when I realised that I could have used flashbang to interrupt too (which I had forgot about) while I was struggling to find enough interrupt abilities.

As for what to do next, nobody says it can only be one thing! You can do a bit of endgame for character progression and a bit of alt levelling for more story. :)

I found Voss' plot boss to be really easy as a Marks Sniper, though my friend who was a mix of DPS/Healing Operative was finding it hard because he kept starting it not right. I was using Temple and he was using Scorpio, as well. It didn't seem to be different from any other mission elite...

Regarding class quests being easy, I figure it's primarily because quest story zones kind of expect you to go alone, especially if you're playing with others of the same class, since they can't progress THEIR quest in it. So even though I was playing through Voss with my friend, we had to do class instance zones alone because of that.

That said, I agree that the story has been really good. I'm at 49 now and still some Bonus Series and another planet away from max, but the story has been fairly strong overall. I'm looking forward to trying another class when I'm done.

I've just started on IA after having finished Jedi Knight. I played the JK with a Jedi Consular partner all the way, so I was able to see most of the JC story line as well. The JC story line is quite good, very strong on the diplomat aspect. JK was a bit humdrum, you get to be the Big Damn Hero quite a few times, mostly by kicking ass. There are some cool moments though.

I'd recommend trying JC with a female character. The voice actress is quite good, a very calm and "zen" voice. :)

I played an evil healing Sith Sorcerer to 50, and turn around and playing a 100% light side IA. It's a bit difficult trying to deal with my alignment choices and trying to retain affection from my first companion.

Class quest difficulty varies greatly by class. Some classes have very easy class quests, other have pretty hard class quests.

For a look at the flip side of class quest difficulty, try the Jedi Knight (Guardian or Sentinel). Most of the major class quests involve difficult boss fights that can require multiple deaths to figure out.

My level 15 quest against a level 16 boss, that I admittedly reached at level 14 ended up being too hard to complete. I had to recruit a friend to come help me (either that, or leave the quest until I'd leveled a bit more and I didn't like that idea).

The order in which you get companions makes a big difference too. My Bounty Hunter Powertech has an easy time thanks to having a healer companion from the get go. My Jedi Knight Guardian doesn't get a healer for ages yet, and has a much harder time.

You should definitely try and do the two raids once. They're quite easy, and completely doable with fresh level 50 gear (or do the pvp daily+weekly for easy 136 rating epics.)

There are some interesting mechanics in the fights; most of them are quite different from WoW. I'm a big fan of the towers of hanoi droid in Karagga's Palace. The last three fights in EV were quite different from WoW-style fights as well.

I honestly do not like the end game. You could start a new character, but you will have mostly recycled common quests with the occasional class quest. Take this with a grain of salt as I am all but done with the game. Story was awesome, but I am having a hard time going through the same quests a second time for some reason, and there is far too much missing from the end game to be worthwhile for me.